


The Flavor of Youth

by someonesbunny



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, F/M, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24641500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someonesbunny/pseuds/someonesbunny
Summary: Tifa reflects on her life in Midgar and how Cloud fits into a life she built on leaving Nibelheim behind.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 13
Kudos: 93





	The Flavor of Youth

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after after Cloud's talk with Tifa about his promise. Additional day slipped in for the events of this story. 
> 
> Special thanks to a certain Waffle that proofread this.

Tifa Lockhart was getting ready for another evening at Seventh Heaven and she was meticulous in her preparations for every opening. Her method was thorough as it was with everything she did, but this was one of the few activities that also afforded her quiet seclusion to make these labors akin to ritual; the work she did here became a small prayer for a good night to come. It was in these quiet moments that she would take the time to note the thoughts and memories that sprang up in her mind unprompted – often small memories of things she thought she had forgotten, though there were some that appeared which she preferred not to remember at all: those memories about her hometown of Nibelheim. It wasn't that she had a poor upbringing – no, it had been good enough; it was how her town was stolen from her that left such deep scars. It used to be a rare occasion that any thought of the old town arose, and as the years passed living her new life in Midgar they grew rarer still with no trace of her past to anchor her to a town that must no longer exist. Lately, however, she couldn't help but think of it.

The most recent memory that conjured itself in her mind was one that started with the the sound of rhythmic hammering from outside her window of her childhood home. Her memories of this day were hazy, dreamlike in quality as if traversing fog, but the sound at least remained clear. She recalled that there was a storm the days and nights before and this was the first clear day since. All the men in town had started on repairing homes and structures and cleaning the debris that littered the streets. In another instance of clarity, with vibrant colour cutting clean through the haze, she remembers having peered out the window while the sunlight washed through and smiling when she saw her neighbour: a boy of pale skin and golden hair. He sat atop his roof with a hammer, placing and replacing shingles that were blown away. She knew that the boy lived with his mother and she relied on him; so, perhaps with a bit of vanity, he had counted himself among the men of the town.

That was Cloud Strife as the boy she once knew. He had arrived in Midgar, seemingly from nowhere after years of him being gone – years after she left every trace of Nibelheim behind – returned to her, grown into a man, and the likely reason why Nibelheim was on her mind.

When opening hours came, it was usually the same crowd of people – the local construction workers, the shopkeepers, the neighbourhood layabouts, and the young people dreaming of a life atop the plate. Among the young ones, Jessie's friends and roommates frequented Seventh Heaven and arrived at the same time almost every night. Most of them were aspiring actresses and they all exuded that same excitability that made Jessie so magnetic – they were pretty, too, and that definitely turned heads.

She would take the time to listen to them talking every night, usually about this boy or that boy, or who was dating whom; about scandals or rumours, or the boys they wanted to bed. She could have been just like them, she would sometimes think, but she was and always would be far too busy to even bother (she had a habit of telling herself that comforting line, at any rate, this self-fulfilling prophecy of _too busy_ for reasons she no longer remembered or had chosen to forget).

“Hey Tifa!” one of the girls called out as she approached the bar.

“Hey, Belle. What can I get you ladies?”

“Six big bottles of the homebrew for now...”

“Gotcha!”

“Oh! And plastic cups are fine!”

Tifa retrieved the bottles from the fridge and the cups from under the counter and reached them over to the girl who took them into her arms stiffly.

“Thanks!”

“You can settle up the tab later – I know you ladies are gonna stay.”

“Thanks, Tifa!” their table chimed in.

Tifa listened in to their conversation and was surprised to hear that they weren’t talking about the boys they usually did or the stupid banter between friends in romantic pursuits. Tonight was dedicated to the new boy in town. It really didn't take very long for them to notice Cloud, not that she hadn't noticed him either. He wasn't too tall, but still taller than her. His physique was much more striking: his shoulders had broadened and his muscles had filled out. His face had become more chiselled – more handsome now than cute as he had been.

“But he's so pretty.”

“He's not soft though – didn't you see him toss that huge crate?”

The girls had been watching him on one of his jobs, a simple one to unload shipments, exactly the kind of work he wasn't interested in, but for lack of choice, he had accepted. He was hauling crates and moving heavy sacks for most of the day and it had been unusually hot ( _and he must have been sweaty_ – Tifa thought this sounded like the beginning of a trashy novel, but did her best to keep the thought from fully materializing lest she embarrasses herself by remembering she still liked to read those). Even without the liquor, it looked like these girls were already drunk enough on the memory of him to give themselves to a fantasy of who Cloud Strife was.

“I wonder where he’s really from, I mean, he’s so... just so different.”

“Is it weird that him being sweaty kinda made me, um... It’s just that it was a lot like this one book I read...”

“... and if he held me with those muscly arms of his...”

“And his eyes! It's like they shine or something!”

The girls drank fast and as the night wore on, she heard them talk of how he wiped his brow gruffly with his forearms, how he scowled in the midday heat, and about his well-formed shoulders and the coiled sinew that betrayed the delicateness of his skin. They whispered of how they watched as the sweat traced down from under his chin down his neck, and how his rough, torrid sighs ebbed like the crashing of waves on the rocks. They had wondered if his exotic looks meant that he was a traveller from some far off Northern coast where the sand was as pale as his skin – and _my goodness_ his eyes – they cried: they decided that the blues and the greens of his eyes were a memento from a faraway sea given to the sons of sailors.

 _Horny girls and poetry – who'd have guessed,_ Tifa smiled to herself, _You might think they were describing a painting._

“I wonder if he has a type...”

“Speaking of types, I bet you anything that he's _that_ type of guy,” one of them slurred while wagging her finger, “because you don't look like that and stay with one woman.”

“Ooh, Belle, are you saying you're okay to share?”

“Not at the same time!”

They laughed and Tifa found herself huffing at the thought as she glanced at the flower in a little vase on the counter next to the till.

_That type? He's still that same timid, country boy._

_Right?_

He was awfully shy and very rough around the edges. Perhaps it had been different because to her, he had always been that quiet boy who had once kept her at arm's length and who called her out in the night just to tell her he was leaving, not once glancing in her direction. It seemed that things were at least a little different now that he was grown up: he had even given her a flower and that certainly couldn't be nothing coming from him.

Or perhaps it was, and she really was just _another_ girl that he was handing one out to.

She frowned and absentmindedly wiped the countertop with a rag as the chatter in the bar faded from her hearing.

She remembered one man who had given her a whole bouquet (which she promptly turned down). He was a member of AVALANCHE and was a friend – and a terrible womanizer. She wasn’t quite sure just how many girls he had done in with that trick but Tifa knew that it wasn't the flowers that made him good at this, it was that he was also good with words.

 _And, as he so often claimed to anyone who would listen, good with his mouth,_ Tifa thought with a shudder.

“No way. Cloud’s too uptight to be like _that_ ,” Tifa muttered under her breath.

“He’s too uptight for what?”

Tifa gasped as her eyes shot up to the bar counter. Barrett was sitting in front of her and she hadn’t noticed until he chimed in.

“Oh, Barret, hey!”

“I been sitting here for, like, ten minutes while you wiped that same spot on the counter. What did that jackass do this time?”

“Nothing, Barret. Just thinking out loud – its stupid stuff.”

“Tifa, if he –”

“ _If he_ nothing, Barret,” she snapped before he could finish, “Be nice to him.”

Barret grumbled a little under his breath, likely a complaint or perhaps an observation at how quickly she shut him down whenever it came to Cloud, but it was too loud in the bar for her to hear. When he finally looked up at her again, all he said was: “Pass me a bottle of the homebrew.”

“Is it just me or is no one into my cocktails today?” Tifa asked out loud as she handed the bottle to him.

“I know your tricks. Don't change the subject.”

“What?”

“Go on then, tell me.”

She let out an exasperated sigh.

“It's nothing bad, okay? I was just thinking that it would be nice if I had some time to spend with him – it’s been a while and I want to catch up with an old friend. Happy?”

Barret took a sip from the bottle without taking his eyes off hers.

“You sweet on him?”

“Wha– W-we're friends, Barret,” Tifa sputtered, the pitch of her voice getting noticeably higher, “I haven't seen him in a long time – we grew up together; Is it weird that I want to catch up? We were neighbours back in the day.”

“You're neighbours _now_ ,” Barret said as he took another sip from the bottle in his hand, “And you're using a lot of words to _not_ answer my question...”

“Barret –”

“...which, I guess, tells me enough...”

“He's a friend and he's new and I'm just being helpful –”

“...and you're wiping the counter again...”

“And I just don't think you've given him a fair chance –”

“...So you got him a place next to you so you can, what? Check up on him before bed?”

“Barret!” Tifa said in a harsh whisper, heat rising from her back to her nape at being reminded of visiting Cloud's room the evening before.

“Struck a nerve?” Barret asked which was met with a glare, “Just sayin’, he’s no good for you.”

“Even if something were happening, that’s not up to you.”

“He’s a shithead...”

“He's not.”

“...A big, dumbass, shitty shithead.”

“He's a good guy.”

Barret stood up while taking the last deep gulps from the bottle in his hand until he brought it down on the counter empty. He reached into his pocket.

“Here,” he said as he dropped cash on the counter, “That's for the bottle – I put in a little extra so you can buy yourself two shots of whatever you got behind the counter to calm your ass down about that idiot.”

Tifa wordlessly grabbed the money from the counter and glanced at it: “The extra is only enough for one,” she added dryly.

“Then just have the one. I'm gonna meet with the crew. We talk tomorrow about the _thing_.”

“Right. The _thing_.”

“Don't be late.”

Tifa couldn't help but frown. This was her life – and it was either work or it was war. There really was nothing else she had time for.

She brought the money to the till and placed it inside. The flower that Cloud had given her sat next to it. Through the noise of the bar, her ears returned to the sound of the girls talking behind her. They spoke with a melody in their voices filled with laughter and smiles on their lips. They were free to live and dream about their wants, about joy, about romance, and about escape. She heard them every night and it used to make her laugh, but tonight, all it did was make her feel lonely as she was filled with a sudden and wistful longing to simply be ordinary.

The rest of the evening passed without much trouble, though it had been slower than usual. She tried keeping thoughts from entering her mind by working a little harder, serving a little faster, and cleaning more thoroughly. Soon enough the bar was empty and she was ready to close shop. The counters and tabletops were clean, and the chairs upturned on the tables. Barrett would arrive soon enough with Marlene and lock up himself.

Tifa stretched her arms and back as she bent down and pressed her palms on the counter of the bar. She felt the spaces between her spine pop just a little and her muscles draw out like so many tiny strings. She walked to the door, looked out to the street, and stopped as she noticed a tuft of blonde hair peeking out from next to the staircase.

_Is that... Cloud?_

She slowly made her way out to the front and looked at him, leaning on the railing of the veranda. His back was turned to her, but she knew it was him although that this time he wasn't carrying a sword. She was certain that he never left his room without it, even to pass by the shops close to the train station.

“Cloud?”

Cloud's ears perked up and he turned to face her, greeting her with a cool: “Hey.”

“What's up? What are you doing here?”

“I was out for a walk. Figured I'd pass by... and I heard you closing up already.”

_Out without any of your stuff?_

“Was it a short walk?”

“What? No, I... got around.”

“Really?”

“Why?”

“Nothing, I've just never seen you go anywhere without your sword.”

Tifa thought Cloud looked like a puppy caught doing something it shouldn't have been doing – and that made her wonder for a moment (or even hope) that he might have left it all in his room because he came straight to see her.

_That's stupid, Tifa._

“Let's just get going,” he called to her curtly. He began walking toward the closest route back to Stargazer Heights – it really wasn't much of a walk, but then the Sector 7 slums wasn't really such a big place at all.

“Cloud, wait,” she called as she grabbed his hand. Before Cloud could turn back to look at her, she pulled her hands back to herself as casually as she could and continued, “Let's take the long way, okay?”

“Huh?”

“I know I showed you around already, but it would be nice to talk a little.”

He hesitated for a moment then nodded with a grunt in agreement.

Tifa knew he usually walked fast, but she noticed that this time he was deliberately walking at her cadence, letting her control the pace. She was relieved that while he could be abrasive, there were moments when he was at least a little mindful of her. It was a small gesture, but this uncharacteristic thoughtfulness had at least momentarily assuaged a nagging worry that he had changed into someone completely unrecognizable. She was relieved when she heard that he had done well on the last mission and his work was appreciated, albeit grudgingly, but the risk in taking him was high, the stakes were real, and now they were personal too. The future with AVALANCHE hung in the balance, but now with Cloud, so did her past.

She would glance at him from time to time as they walked through the side alleys of the slums, hearing the lively chatter of families in their homes, smelling the fragrances of food being cooked for late dinners of loved ones returning home from the plate. They heard the haughty laughter of the old men drinking on the streets and the patter of feet of the rowdy boys who still played after dark. There was music too, from radios in different homes and street corners, buzzing with warm static as the harmonies from each clashed with the others. The buzzing din of life in the undercity, so far removed from the small towns they knew, but so familiar in their closeness.

“Hey Cloud?”

“Hm?”

“Feels a little like a small town here, huh? Not exactly the same with ShinRa running the show, but, sorta similar.”

“Didn't expect it to be, but yeah,” he said with a shrug.

Tifa watched as the lights from slatted windows passed across Cloud's face as they walked. His eyes were different – _it's the mako_ she knew he would say as he always did, but the difference she saw was not in the colour but in its softness. He was tight-lipped about the past, but it was an open secret that Cloud once fought for ShinRa and it had been Barret who said that it was only natural that he was so cold because that was the mark that ShinRa left on everything and everyone. As it was ShinRa, she had wondered if his coldness was a mark of terrible things done to him or perhaps even a mark of terrible things he had done. Maybe it was both.

“You've probably been to a lot of other towns while you were soldiering, huh?”

“I've been around. Mostly backwaters, but well enough around.”

“What was that like?”

“It was just work. And it was working for ShinRa,” he responded, tersely as was his way.

Tifa felt the tension in the air as he spoke and tried to dispel it, “Sorry – I didn't mean to pry again. Just curious, is all.”

“No, Tifa, I... sorry, I didn't mean to sound _like that._ I just don't know what to tell you.”

She placed her fingers on his arm reassuringly.

“It's okay. I think I understand. Let's talk about something else,” she spoke with a gentle tone as her eyes wandered up toward the tiny, twinkling lights on the plate of Midgar high above, “Here's a better question then: do you ever think about what would have happened if you decided to do it differently?”

“What do you mean? Different work?”

“No, just life in general,” she said with a wag of the finger, “Do you ever wonder what it would be like if we could live differently – just live quietly, far away from here?”

While Tifa was interested in what had happened in his time away, it was far from what she knew was important. She had worried for a while that her glowing account of the kind of man he was had been fabricated for her need to keep him close, so it was important that she understood what kind of man he had become. She wanted to know if he was a good man as she believed he was and hoped it was not simply built on her own impressions of that boy skirting the edges of her memories. She wanted to believe that this open secret of the life he lived in SOLDIER was hiding another secret of deeper import; that what it was meant to hide was the warmth of the boy he once was.

“I dunno,” he answered after a time, “Never really crossed my mind.”

“How come?”

“Maybe I've changed too much,” he said in a lowered voice.

She stepped closer to him as they navigated through the narrower corridors of the slum.

“Hm,” She started thoughtfully, “I sort of feel the same. But wouldn't it be nice to be small again?”

“What, like kids?” he asked while kicking a stone (she remembered when she was young, she would often see Cloud playing alone, kicking stones down the hillside to the ravine).

“No... I mean a simple life – no AVALANCHE, no SOLDIER, just small town stuff.”

“Small town? Doesn't seem exciting.”

“It's not supposed to be,” she laughed, “At least there's not a lot of danger.”

“Not sure if I could see myself farming or... or doing carpentry.”

“It's at least an honest living.”

“I guess,” he nodded faintly in agreement, “Well, what would you do, then?”

“I'd like to remind you that I was a mountain guide.”

“Not supposed to be exciting, remember?”

“Going up and down a trail isn't exciting. But fine, if I didn't do that, I'd be a barkeep, like I am now.”

“Well, _Cloud the Farmer_ doesn't really have the same ring to it...”

“Carpenter, then.”

“I'm not great with wood.”

“Really?” she asked playfully.

“Yeah, never took to it.”

“I saw you, you know. Back in Nibelheim. You were on the roof hammering away, fixing stuff after the storm. You made such a racket,” Tifa laughed as she spoke, “But you know, it was kind of cute. You even had a lunchbox up there with you – you were eating a sandwich with your feet dangling off the roof like those old-timey pictures of people on lunch break when they were building the Midgar plates.”

“You were watching me?”

“A little. I just thought it was sweet, you know – you, trying your best for your mom.”

She noticed him turn away as he pursed his lips. She wondered if he was blushing and wished for just a passing flash of light to see the colour in his cheeks and found herself smiling at the thought.

They took another detour through the winding passages of the slums. It was a familiar scene for Tifa: warm lamplight shining from window sills and cats mewling on the rooftops. The corridor lined with doorways was much narrower here, forcing the pair to walk closer, almost shoulder to shoulder. It might have been easier to walk one in front of the other, but it didn't seem to occur to them, or else neither was willing to act on it if it did.

“You know,” Tifa said in almost a whisper, “I’ve come to really like the people here, but... nothing about this place sits well with me. Can’t see the sky, not like in the mountains... It was so clear then, remember?”

“You've been in a pretty nostalgic mood lately. Why are you thinking about this?”

“Do you remember, though?”

“Of course I do.”

She smiled at that, too.

“To be honest, I think it's kind of strange, too... I don't think about Nibelheim much at all, but now that you’re here, I suppose it made me wonder what it would be like if we grew up there, living normal, boring lives. If ShinRa never came and the town was just as sleepy and boring as it always was. We’d be different people from how we are now.”

She looked at him in her periphery with a dim awareness of how suddenly close they were standing next to each other.

“Maybe... we'd be happier,” she continued, “No one will have to know who we are. Just boring day jobs, then we go home and be boring there too. Tifa the barkeep and Cloud the carpenter. Really just some run-of-the-mill mountain folk. No one will have anything wild to say about us. No crazy stories – or maybe just enough for the town gossip. If we live quietly enough, I bet that the people who live in the house next to us might even say we’re nice people.”

“Next to us?”

The words caught in her throat. Her eyes shot to her feet while she pulled a strand of hair behind her ear. Heat bubbled up to her cheeks and she felt a flutter in her stomach. She hadn't meant to imply anything, but she spoke faster than she thought. Her mind was suddenly filled with memories of that silly cowgirl outfit from when she was fifteen; she remembered she wanted to wear it when she thought Cloud was visiting and she wondered if this is what it would have felt like if he had.

“Town's small – and we were neighbours, right?” she added quickly, waving her hand as if to dismiss her earlier musings, “Well, anyway... it doesn't matter since you're not really Cloud the carpenter. You're Cloud the SOLDIER.”

“Ex...”

“Right, ex-SOLDIER.”

“Were you hoping for a different life?” he asked in a low tone and was met with an almost inaudible gasp from Tifa, who was surprised that he didn't move on from the discussion like she expected he would.

“You're really taking that ' _I'm listening'_ to heart, huh?” she said with an awkward chuckle in a poor attempt to discourage him.

“I _am_ trying, you know.”

“I know. Sorry, I just... it means a lot. I just didn't expect...”

His eyes were trained on her, intently watching – _Why won't you let this go?_

Despite her desire to avoid the discussion, she was glad at least that there really was proof that Cloud had some gentleness left in him and that the idea hadn't simply been born from a memory of who he was. And here he was, the man she claimed to her friends _he was_. Unable to answer the question, Tifa decided to explain by asking him what it was she asked of herself:

“Are you happy... with who you grew up to be?”

She studied his face as she asked and saw that his brows furrowed and his lips curled to a slight frown. She couldn't quite decipher his expression; it was difficult to distinguish if it was confusion or pain, but whatever this question brought to his mind, she was certain that there too was sadness – some she was sure that was similar to her own. She heard him sigh and watched him look at his hands as if there would be an answer written there for him.

“I haven't decided,” he soon said softly as he turned to look at her, “I'll let you know... when I know.”

“Okay,” was all she could muster looking at him then, words again catching in her throat. His eyes had suddenly softened so much so that the erasure of the SOLDIER that walked into her life seemed so complete, and all at once, he was the boy waiting for her at the water tower again. They were silent for a few moments, but for the first time, it was a truly comfortable silence.

“Hey, Cloud... about last night, about your promise...”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sort of surprised that you remember it at all. It’s a pretty small thing...”

“It’s not.”

“Really?” she said with a teasing tone, “I bet you made all sorts of promises to lots of other _backwater_ girls while you were travelling around.”

“What? No.”

“I know,” she said as she turned her head to hide her smile at his quick response, “I’m just teasing.”

“Hang on. And how would you know?” he asked back (she swore there was some amusement in his voice, but couldn't quite find the courage to see if he was smiling too).

“How could I not? You've never been a talker, but you’re still a bit of an old-school country boy, even with all the SOLDIER stuff... It’s fine though, I think it's charming.”

“Charming, huh? Never thought I'd hear that about me.”

“You should hear what the other girls say,” Tifa mumbled just a little too softly.

“Huh?”

“I said, I’m glad you didn’t forget,” she answered quickly, “About your promise, I mean.”

“Well... you didn’t either.”

“A thing like that isn’t so small to a small town girl like me. I’m still a country girl myself, you know?”

“You don't seem like much of a country girl anymore.”

“City living takes some getting used to, but definitely helps if you make a few more friends in the neighbourhood...”

“Sounds like a lot of work.”

“It's just a suggestion.”

“Not interested.”

“It could do you some good to try to be nicer to other people, you know.”

“More lessons...?”

“...That I hope you take to heart.”

“Honestly, I've only got so much _nice_ to go around.”

“So you're saying you'd rather just spend all that ' _nice_ ' on me?” Tifa asked and immediately felt her ears heat up as the words rolled carelessly from her mouth. Two gaffes in one night and they had only spoken for... _how long had they been talking_? Had she been that lost in being with him?

“Maybe...” he finally answered looking like he might have been thinking the same.

They walked in silence the rest of the way and kept their eyes fixed ahead to the apartment complex as they passed under the lights of the streetlamps. As they arrived at the steps of Stargazer Heights, neither looking at each other, she felt his hand gently placed on her back to nudge her ahead on the narrow stairs and Tifa allowed her mind to wander briefly to the thought that it might have looked like they were going home together. They made their way up to the second floor and stopped in front of Tifa's door.

“It was nice... catching up, I mean,” Tifa said with a small smile.

“Yeah, it was...”

They both paused, neither moving, appearing unsure if they even wanted to move at all.

“Cloud?”

“Hm?”

“... Next time you take a walk, you could just pop inside the bar – I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to, but if you did, you can hang around while I finish up –”

“Okay. I'll pass by next time.”

“You will?”

“Yeah.”

“Then... I'll give you some drinks to tide you over while you do.”

“I really can't drink that much.”

“Then... maybe I'll feed you,” Tifa laughed.

Cloud looked at her thoughtfully and spoke his words in a shy whisper: “I'd... actually really like that.”

She wasn't sure why, but the way he spoke then had taken her aback. Tifa swallowed deeply as she looked at him. She saw that his pale eyebrows, usually furrowed, were eased gracefully on his brow, she noticed the clarity in the light glow of his eyes, she admired his finely shaped nose as well as the parting of his full lips. He stood so close that she could just make out his scent – she might have imagined that this is what the arid heat of the desert would smell like with a subtle but soft tartness like the scent of lilacs in the monsoon.

“Tifa,” she saw his lips move, but she was frozen.

The deepening shadows drew around the contours of his face and the square of his jaw. His skin was so pale. He was still just as strange as she remembered and had become just a little too aloof, but she could not deny that he had become far too beautiful now not to be marked in some way by his apartness from other men.

“Tifa,” Cloud called out gently as he took a step toward her.

With a squeak, Tifa took a small, retreating step and found herself with her back pressed hard against her door. Her heart was beating loudly in her ears, her breaths were shallow.

“Cloud... I'm...”

“What is it?”

“W-wait...” she rasped weakly.

She reached out and pressed her hand against his chest as if to stop his advance. As if on instinct, her fingers curled around the leather straps of his uniform and she found herself caught between Cloud and her bedroom door, her body unsure if it would push or pull.

“Wait?” he asked gently with his head cocked to the side. There was concern in his eyes and a little confusion. He hadn't said anything about her hand on his chest or how she had clutched onto him. Tifa took a deep breath to steady herself, released the hold her fingers had on him and placed her hand back down to her side.

“Sorry, I thought you were gonna... you were...”

“Thought I was what?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Tifa...” again she caught the gentle concern in his voice.

“I'm fine. I promise.”

She heard him huff, “If you're sure...”

“Cloud... thanks for today.”

“I didn't do anything,” his voice rang unsure, “I was... I was just passing by.”

“You came to walk me home, right?”

Tifa smiled at him, radiant even in the dark and he turned away, himself glowing with timidity, his eyes flickering toward anything but her. She spoke in a trembling whisper that he could hear only faintly, “I really like it... when you're being sweet to me.”

She thought she heard him gasp as his eyes returned to meet hers and as they met, she was sure she must have gasped too. She searched them for his intentions and caught herself wondering what might happen if either one of them just dared to move just a little closer. Her body was crying out, but she wasn't quite sure for what, and her head was floating because she must not have been breathing; all she could think was that _his eyes were twinkling_. Her heart was climbing up her throat while her hand slid against her door, groping for the handle beside her, desperate to break whatever spell he put on her (from where she was, she couldn't see that she put one on him too).

When her hand touched the cold metal of the door handle, that feeling that gripped her loosened just enough for her to speak.

“Early, um, day tomorrow,” Tifa stammered, still staring into his eyes, “We should – _I_ should go to bed,”

“Uh, y-yeah... you're right.”

“Goodnight, Cloud.”

She began opening the door to her room just a little too quickly and turned back to look at him. He stood there, still looking at her. She saw him mouth the words back: “Goodnight” before turning away.

She closed the door behind her and let out a heavy sigh, then smiled. When she finally got to bed that night, she found herself curled up into a ball clutching her pillow tightly and nuzzling it while her lips nipped at the pillowcase. Her bed creaked as she tossed and turned. She wouldn’t sleep much that night (for reasons she dared not yet put in words), but the walls were thin and she could hear that Cloud was restless too. 

Though she had no poetry in her to describe him, she could boast that she could at least describe him honestly. He wasn’t some exotic stranger from a lost coast, nor was he a wayfaring skirt-chaser on the hunt for another conquest. He was a country boy who was a little too big for his britches, who picked fights and often sat alone. He was rough and spoke out of turn, but it hid a secret tenderness that only she seemed to see. He was the boy she saw on the roof who did his best to help his mother, whose hands were calloused from scuffles, whose boots were always dirty. He was the boy who made a promise without really looking at her to see what words she had been hoping for.

He had always wanted to be more though she didn’t know why, and she had thought that it would be enough if he _just came back_. In a strange reversal, she realized that his arrival had become a homecoming for her, serving as a reminder of the fondness she had for a past that she once thought she wanted to forget. Through this strange boy, she had a moment to experience, if only for this night, those small moments she thought she may have missed forever: the grazes on skin, the swirling of butterflies, and words caught in her chest – the vibrant colours and the bittersweet flavour of youth.

Those other girls could tell as many stories as they liked about Cloud; of where he had travelled, or how his eyes were reflections from some distant sea. Though there was so much she missed of him in those years they spent apart, she was at least certain that his eyes were keepsakes from a sky they shared, high above the mountains, where the stars could still be seen at night.

His eyes brought her _home_ – and for once, _home_ felt right.


End file.
